Rules of posting in SMALL TALK

Please read this in full. We try to cover everything that has come up in the past, and we have come to terms with being unable to predict future problems. Instead we use our judgment, our Golden Rule is to THINK BEFORE YOU POST. If you have a question on whether or not to make a thread, please direct it to the Talk to Mods/Admins Forum (TTMA). If we feel like you should have known better, we will ban you, no warning. If we feel like it was a mistake, we have tools such as an infraction, which will contribute a percentage of points to a possible ban (don't worry, these expire, and are the lowest possible form of punishment).

EVERY rule is up to ANY moderator's judgment. And if you disagree with their judgment, use the private messages or TTMA forum. If you ask calmly, politely, reasonably, and take some responsibility, you may find yourself resolved. If you come in guns blazing, expect to be shot down by 5-10 other moderators.

I divided this into 3 sections:General RulesThread RulesCourtesy and Etiquette
All sections can earn you a ban.

General Rules

Here are the top 3 reasons people are banned for:

1. FLAMING - Flaming is excessive insulting of another member. We don't want it. Everyone has an equal right to this forum. I'd be lying if I said we let some insulting fly, but in order to cover our *****, the rules state that none is acceptable. This is a very sketchy area, and even a simple comment can earn you a ban. It is best to avoid anything that may be considered flaming.

2. FIRST POST - Posting "First Post" or any derivative will also put you on the business end of a ban stick. PbNation is not a post contest. "First Post" tends to decrease post quality in a thread, we've had this problem in the past, and we're putting an end to it.

Here are other rules, which too can earn you a ban:

3. SPAM – Spam is the broadest rule, and will cover practically anything you can do. Posting things that have no purpose, no topic, or are just too dumb to be allowed on PbN can be considered spam.
Examples of Spam:
- If you post random images, Rick Roll, etc., that is spam.
- If you make “IBC”, “tl;dr” or other posts of that nature, that is spam.
- iPod links, referral (Outwar) type games, and things of that nature are also considered spam.
- Remaking a Closed/Moved/Deleted Thread
- Posting random lyrics to songs
- Excessive Spacing (More then 5 enters or "spaces" unless is a part of thread formatting) Note: adding 20 spaces to put a in a post is bannable.
- Crying Wolf - Abusing the "Report to Moderator" button, posting "screamer" or "porn" in a non-Screamer/porn link
- Posting a Screamer
- Posting in a thread with porn (Porn thread) - The simplified reason is that it greatly hinders our job.
- Parody Threads - a thread mocking another thread (extended: mocking anything on PbN). 1 turns into 100 in minutes. Possible PERM ban with this one.jk.
- Up-side-down - No writing in up-side-down text.
- 4Chan or /b/
- Repeating other users text word for word (or close variation)

4. OTHER FORUMS AND WEBSITES - Planning spam attacks on other forums or websites of ANY KIND is not allowed because they will retaliate with spam. If someone spams us, ignore them, and they will stop. [this includes stickam]

5. DISCRIMINATORY POSTS (RACISM) – There will be absolutely ZERO tolerance with posts of a racist/discriminatory nature. If you think there is even a small chance it may be seen as being so, it is best you not post it. A race is any group of people that follow a similar belief or heritage (Ex: Black People, Jews, Mormons, etc). If you violate this rule, you will probably receive a permanent ban. Hint: Anything that starts with "I'm not racist but..." is probably racist.

THREAD RULES

6. CLUBS – No clubs. They aren't productive, and multiply quickly. No one wants to sift through 4 pages of club threads to get to ST.

7. GORE THREADS - We are a PG-13 website, keep it clean.

8. PICTURES – If you post a picture that contains nudity, swear words, racist comments, or anything else that in any way breaks any of PBN or ST’s rules, you will be banned. Also, if you post a picture of yourself or a loved one, expect negative comments. We won’t allow flaming, but people are allowed to comment on pictures you post. If you can’t take it, don’t post it.

9. GDT’s & CHAT THREADS – A GDT is a General Discussion Thread, or a thread without a clear-cut topic. We do not allow these in regular ST because of problems they create. We have very good merit for this, and this rule is not changing. High probability of ban on this rule.

10. REVENGE THREADS – If someone has wronged you, please don't ask us for ideas to get revenge. Our ideas are too twisted and vile to actually be done by anyone who can consider themselves a human.

11. MACROS/GAMES - Macro threads are not allowed. We all know about Collegehumor and EbaumsWorld. The exception to this is Caturday, which has VERY high demand. Also, no AddictingGames, StopBeingBored, etc. type games.

12. WHO/WHAT/FAVORITE/VS - Do not post a thread such as "What would you rather be...", "What's your favorite...", "What should I... (buy)", "Who would ... (win)" or "Boats VS Dinosaurs... (VS).

13. DRUG THREADS - No discussion of drugs. Pretty obvious...

14. DUPLICATE THREADS - Do not post the same thread in OSST and ST. The thread in OSST will be deleted.

15. MEDICAL/LAW THREADS - Do not post threads asking for medical or law advice. If its a serious problem, then go to the doctor or lawyer. Odds are, if you are asking ST, it is not serious. No one in ST is a doctor or lawyer as far as anyone knows, so no one will be able to help you.

16. OFFICIAL THREADS - Only moderators can make a thread official. Do not use the tags "Official", "Unofficial", or "Thread*"
* (Such as "The Flashlight Thread"). We want to keep the integrity of our Official threads A+, we can't have everyone dub their thread "Official".

COMMON COURTESY AND ETIQUETTE

17. SPELLING AND GRAMMAR - Make an effort to spell words correctly, use paragraphs, and use standard English. We aren't grammar Nazi's and we do not expect each post to be a college thesis, but we do require some level of intelligence in the discourse. Don't make posts to correct someone's grammar or spelling - if you can't understand them, let it slide. If the post is nearing nonsensical, report it, and a mod will look at it and judge its validity. The time you save in typing "u" instead of "you" is minuscule at greatest, and frankly not worth sacrificing your credibility. Run on sentences are confusing, and if a moderator can not understand your post, you may be banned for spam.

18. QUOTING LARGE POSTS - Do not quote excessively large posts unless you are making an equally large reply (this is common in the politics forum). Do not quote a posts with multiple pictures, or very large pictures in them. If you must quote a large post, delete the parts you are not directly replying to. If you must quote with multiple pictures, either limit it to one small/medium sized picture (800x600 or less) or take out the / from the image tags so you can see the [img]http://whateverpicture.jpg[img] text only.

19. POSTING IMAGES - Please resize your posted pictures to AT MOST 1024x768, 800x600 is preferred. Anything larger, please post the link to the image using [url] tags, rather then [img] tags.

Alright, most of you don't remember the PBR/PBN spam wars. Well, let's say some of our members' trisomy 21 kicked in and they started spamming PBReview. We have... I don't even know how many members... but well over 200,000, so when we get even a small amount of them spamming, it's still a crap load to deal with.

Since we here at PBNation like to maintain a positive image in lieu of our population's maturity, we have banned for spam attacks on other forums planned on ours. We have banned other for spamming other forums, period.

Why?

Because within the internet community, the only logical thing to do is the illogical, and spam back, and in turn, cause more spam. It just makes work for me, and I'm way too lazy and abusive to do any real work. It's much easier to just ban the spammers.

Also, when you spam using Mega Moderator's names, they tend to get fairly pissed off and write the administration angry eMails. A quick IP log and search shows who the poster in on our forum, and yeah, I'll ban you like the ancient greeks banned heterosexuality.

This also includes "raiding" in other ways as well. Prank calling, forum raiding, help chat raiding, thread raiding, etc.

This thread is to address the recent increase in rule enforcement within ST. I've taken a couple of my recent posts that I've made in ST and combined them to give everyone an understanding of what's going on, why we're doing it, and what it means to the members of ST.

It's gotten to the point where ST has become more trouble than it's worth from the moderators' standpoint. We have 21 moderators assigned to this forum alone--that's probably more than double what we have in any other forum. That also doesn't take into consideration the Mega-Moderators and Admins who aren't assigned to ST, but make it a part of their rounds.

That's absolutely ridiculous--especially when you consider that ST isn't even the purpose of the web site. ST has become a topic of conversation in the weekly staff meetings and that's not a good thing.

In reality, you guys are just cheating yourselves. If we could simply get you guys to knock off the flaming, trolling, and post spam, we'd be able to turn our attention to other things on the site. The ST community has an opportunity to grow, but that's not going to happen as long as you all are acting like you belong in a special needs class.

If ST were able to change its behavior, I'd be willing to give some of the members who have reached BOS status a pardon. That means they wouldn't have to spend time creating new accounts every day or looking over the shoulder, waiting for the ban hammer to fall on them.

The choice is yours, but understand that the chance of ST going away completely is very real.

We want you guys to have fun in here. We want you to enjoy yourselves. But we also want you to keep your behavior within the rules.

You'll notice that the majority of the enforcement has been focused on three areas: insults, post spam, and trolling. Spend a few minutes looking through the most active threads in here right now and you'll notice that they're thriving with out any of those problems. Whether you realize it or not, you can have fun without being a jackass.

I'm going to leave this thread open for comment and suggestions. We want to hear your ideas on how to improve ST and make it a positive part of the PbNation web site. :nododgy:

There seems to be a growing trend in ST, and other parts of PbNation, to use racial slurs. Whether they are filtered or not, we do not want them on the web site. As a result, we've added a new infraction category to the infraction system.

The "Racial Slur" category is worth 4 points and lasts for a period of 60 days. Moderators also have the option to perm-ban an account for racist remarks.

Alright this has been so played and it has become quite lame and a waste of space. Fair warning, you make a bel air thread you get hit with the spam infraction. I'm just tired of the same unentertaining BS as I am sure many others are.